As the Alexandra, Kidderminster and Worcestershire Royal Hospitals moved towards becoming a Foundation Trust, a recruitment drive for members got underway. The recruitment drive used the social networking site, Facebook, as one of the ways it set out to reach and involve new people.
The Facebook page features information about the Trust, highlighting opportunities to take part.

Once people have registered as members of the Facebook group, they are kept up to date about opportunities to have their say in the way that the Trust is developed and delivered. Members can receive messages and updates directly to their facebook account as well as invitations to relevant events and meetings.

Photos are featured on the page to give the information more visual appeal, and a number of links are featured to other useful resources. There is also the facility for group members to post comments directly onto the page.

In the US, President Obama has recently announced the creation of a new âBlue Button.â By logging on to their personal health records online and pressing the blure button on the website, patients can easily download their health information and share it with health care providers, caregivers, and others they trust.

Having ready access to personal health information can help patients understand their medical history and partner more effectively with providers. The personal health record also includes self-entered health metrics (including blood pressure, weight, and heart rate), emergency contact information, test results, family health history, military health history, and other health-related information.

In the US, many patients were already able to view their medical record online through systems similar to HealthSpace in the England (though held by private healthcare companies).

However, with the Blue Button they will be able to view their claims and self-entered informationâand be able to export that data onto their own computer. This makes it much easier to print and share the information with others, without having to share your log in details.

The information is downloaded as an ASCII text file, the simplest electronic text format. The file is an organised report which is easy to read.

The blue button is currently being trailled with veterans and medicare users.

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http://www.Bounty.com is a website designed for parents as a one stop resource for pregnancy, baby and parenting clubs, new mums to be, and new mums. They provide articles, tips and advice and have extensive forums to allow parents to ask other parents and experts for advice on any topic related to pregnancy.
Bounty also work with leading manufacturers to provide new mums to be with packs containing information, expert advice, support and try before you buy free samples. They provide these packs through leading retailers, such as Asda, Boots and Sainsburyâs, simply by joining the Bounty Club and exchanging the voucher members receive.

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Change4Life is an interactive website that aims to support adults and their children to make the many small changes that add up to a healthier future for their family.

By joining Change4life for free, you receive a wide range of helpful information, recipes, tools, tips, and games for the kids which will support you to become healthier and more active in order to avoid persistent behaviour that increases health risks such as obesity within the family. Once you register you receive a free welcome pack â one for the whole family, or one just for an individual which includes tips, tools and activities to help you start to eat better and move more.

There are useful links and resources on the website and a tool to perform a local area search to find out whatâs happening, and what you can get involved in within your community.

There is also a Twitter stream
to help inspire new ideas to keep children busy, as well as a
Facebook page where you can hold discussions with peers and gain advice on changing4life.

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A group of information professionals in the NHS are developing a handbook on commissioning. The resource is located on a wiki and open for anyone to access and comment on. It is felt that by pooling resources and links, librarians will be better able to understand how to provide information on commissioning to NHS staff. The wiki is a tool which allows users to collaborate on a document.

This is a community platform supporting collaborative networks for those involved in local delivery: central departments, local authorities, other public bodies, frontline staff, health staff, people working in charities and the private sector who are in some way delivering for the public.

Of particular interest the Healthy Communities COP provides a forum for all who are committed to promoting good health in its widest context and reducing inequalities. It enables members to collaborate together to share ideas, good practice, information and knowledge, in order to seek help / seek solutions, broaden knowledge to enable the creation of healthy communities for all.

The LGID encourage you to join this community if your work touches on health improvement, reducing health inequalities or those wider determinants which influence health and wellbeing.

The Better Community Engagement and Empowerment COP aims to share best practice in involving citizens in improving services and in democratic processes, and therefore is also a really interesting and useful COP for those working in the field.

Each COP includes opportunities to post on forums, advertise events of interest, share documents and publications in the online library, a space for blog entries, and also a space for wiki's to be constructed and edited to emphasise and establish collaborative working.

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This website is an interactive and collaborative tool to help people have greater control over their local surroundings. The site uses a web mapping service to allow users to select their area and pin-point a problem that needs to be fixed. The aim of the site is to promote a partnership between communities and statutory services such as their local council and police. Residents report things which might impact on the safety and cleanliness of their area, such as vandalism, fly tipping and abandoned vehicles. Community fix will then send a direct message to the relevant service with an exact location of the problem.

The model used by the service could be adapted for various healthcare involvement needs.

Delib a 'digital democracy' organisation have designed a piece of software that enables NHS organisations (Trusts, GP Consortia etc) to run budget consultation online.

The tool encourages organisations to engage people with budget-setting - The Budget Simulator is a customisable web application, that has consistently delivered high participation rates and meaningful results.

Read an example from Lincolnshire Police Authority who wanted to improve on past practices of budget consultation by creating a richer dialogue and opening up budget consultation to more communities in Lincolnshire.

During the month-long consultation period, around 1,000 people submitted their opinions on the Authority's budget. This also helped drive traffic to the new website and introduce residents to connecting with their Police Authority online.

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The Emotional First Aid training course is designed for practitioners who come into contact with young people who may need to spot the signs of emotional stress in a youngster.
The course includes a DVD featuring writing, poetry and artwork by young people.
Emotional First Aid

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Enabled by Design is an interactive website that has the aim of building a supportive community of people passionate about well designed everyday products. The website encourages individuals to share their loves, hates and ideas, in order to challenge a one-size-fits-all approach to assistive equipment through the use of clever modern design.

There are three main elements to the site through which to share views and opinions on the development of assistive equipment. There is a Loves&Hates Blog where people can promote gadgets that make their lives easier and tasks they find particularly difficult. The Ideas Factory is a space where an idea can grow, develop and build the potential to become a design must have of the future. There is also a product review section where members can highlight good and bad technologies that have already been created.